


Sweden

by owlinaminor



Category: Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
Genre: Epilogue, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 17:17:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3419021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing about Catch-22 is, it can only hurt you if you believe in it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweden

**Author's Note:**

> this is an epilogue to the book, of sorts. why did I write it? because I wanted to. is it in chronological order? I have no idea. does it make any sense? I seriously doubt it.

Orr had been preparing for his escape practically since his arrival in Pianosa, but the ease with which he managed it still took him by surprise.

Perhaps he hadn’t expected the landing to go quite so well, or the lifeboat to inflate quite so much.  There was more tea in the food compartment than he’d hoped for, and more bait.  The only snag in the proceedings was that the fishing rod didn’t seem to cast properly, but with a little time and elbow grease, he could fix that.

Orr didn’t dwell on his good fortune much.  There was fish to be caught, tea to be made, and Sweden to be rowed to.  And besides, if he dwelled too much on his good fortune, it was likely to be snatched away from him.

He only wished that Yossarian was there to harmonize with while he sung rowing songs.

* * *

Luciana was waiting tables in a cafe in Rome when Yossarian found her.

He looked as though he’d been through hell and back, and when he tried to take out a couple of liras to pay for his coffee, an entire wad of cash fell from his pocket onto the floor.  She bent down to help him gather it up, and when their hands brushed, his eyes met hers.

It might have been like a scene from a romantic movie, if not for the fact that he had already met her, fucked her, and left her.

Yossarian stood.  Luciana stood after him, and slapped him across the face as hard as she could manage. 

“You bastard!” she shouted.  Everyone in the cafe could hear her, and their eyes bore into her like suspicious demons, but she did not care.

“Could you maybe not be quite so _loud_?” Yossarian asked, rubbing the side of his face.

Luciana ignored him.  “You ripped up my number as soon as I gave it to you, did you not?”

Yossarian shook his head.  He was almost certainly lying.  (Luciana’s mother had taught her to know when men are lying.  It was a very useful skill.)

She slapped him across the face again.

“Okay, okay!” Yossarian said.  He held his hands up in a gesture of surrender.  “I did, but I realized it was a mistake almost as soon as I did it!  I looked for you for months, I looked for you everywhere.”

Luciana was tempted to slap him across the face for a third time, but then it occurred to her that perhaps this time he was not lying.

She grabbed Yossarian’s hand and led him out of the cafe, down sidewalks, and across streets until they reached her apartment.  Her roommates were (fortunately) not home, and they could talk.

She pulled him to her bedroom and sat down on her bed.  He hesitated for a moment, then sat down beside her.

“Did you really look for me?” she whispered.  “Even though I am not a virgin?”

“Of course,” Yossarian replied.  He looked surprised, as though he could not possibly have given any other answer.

Luciana slapped him across the face for a third time.  “ _Sei pazzo!_ ” she shouted.

Yossarian grinned, and kissed her.  “I’m running away to Sweden,” he said.  “Want to come with me?  We can get married if you want.”

He was crazy, but she did want.

* * *

Yo-Yo’s roommates had no idea what to do with his things.

He had deserted – run somewhere, nobody on the island knew except for the Chaplain and Major Danby, neither of whom were particularly willing to share intelligence – and left behind a cot, some clothes, some books, a couple bottles of booze, and a few dirty magazines.  His things took up room in the tent that they could use to store their own things, or at least widen the partying area.  He was no longer around to use them.

And yet, the roommates couldn’t bring themselves to get rid of anything.  It seemed as though it would be disrespectful – after all, good ol’ Yo-Yo had been pretty brave, to stand up (or, well, walk backward) and refuse to fly more missions, and that was admirable, if admittedly a bit stupid.  They couldn’t just throw his stuff into the woods.  He deserved better.  He deserved _something_.  A plaque, perhaps.  Or a very small museum.

Yo-Yo’s roommates wrote up a petition to give him a plaque or a very small museum and brought it to Colonel Cathcart.  He dismissed it, on the grounds that Yo-Yo was a coward and a deserter, and anyway, a petition with only four signatures wasn’t worth much to anyone.

They trooped back to their tent, dejected.  The things remained where they were, piling up dust in the corner of the tent – except for the booze, which was drunk one bottle at a time on special occasions.

And so, it came to pass that there was another dead man in Yossarian’s tent.  As though the first one hadn’t been quite enough to deal with.

* * *

Doc Daneeka remained officially dead until the end of the war in Europe.

Once the Germans surrendered, the camp evacuated fairly quickly.  Papers for dismissal were distributed as easily as loyalty oaths had once been – all a man had to do was march up to Colonel Cathcart’s office and demand to be sent home – but Doc Daneeka couldn’t get any.  When _he_ marched up to the office, scowl fixedly in place and fists clenched for a fight, he was ignored.  He returned the next day, and was ignored again.

Eventually, the good doctor realized there was only one thing to do: stow away on a ship headed home.  He packed up his folding chair, grabbed a few books, and snuck into the cargo hold the night before the ship was scheduled to leave.  Nobody bothered him down there, and he had all the dried and canned food he could eat.

Unfortunately, it took him until the end of the voyage to realize that the ship upon which he’d stowed was not headed for the U.S.  It was headed for Japan.

Doc Daneeka was kicked out of the ship upon arrival in Hokkaido.  There was no work for him in the military because he could not be given work without papers, and the papers said he was dead.  At first, he wandered around the city aimlessly, looking for a good place to set up his folding chair and muttering to himself.

But then, he made a Discovery: the country and people of Japan had been completely devastated by the war, so completely devastated that they needed doctors now more than anything.  They needed doctors so much, they would pay a fortune for a good one.

And so, Doc Daneeka set up a practice in one of the most war-torn parts of the city.  He hired two beautiful young assistants, one of whom he later married, and made more money in a year than he’d made in his entire adult life so far.

Until the end of his days, he would wonder why he hadn’t gone to the Pacific sooner.

* * *

Captain Flume missed living in the woods.

He had his old home back now, it was true.  Chief [] Halfoat died of pneumonia, which made his tent safe again.  Captain Flume slept peacefully every night knowing that nobody was going to sneak up and slit his throat from ear to ear.

Still, his bed didn’t feel quite right.  It was too soft, too warm.  There was a mattress where there should have been just dirt, a pillow where there should have been just leaves.  He was safe, but not comfortable.

With his old tent had come his old job, drafting press releases to send off to the U.S. in the hopes of making Colonel Cathcart look good.  Captain Flume had always liked his old job before – he loved finding the perfect words to mold any situation into a favorable one – but now, he wasn’t as good at it.  He started a press release, got two sentences in, and then got distracted by the sight of the woods outside his window.

Captain Flume tried to write press releases and sleep in a tent, but he longed for the solitude of woods, the companionship of trees, the hardship of cold ground.

After six weeks back in society, Captain Flume ran away into the woods again.  He was still there when the entire base packed up and went home.

* * *

Major Major Major Major thought he saw his reflection as he passed a shop window.

But then, he realized suddenly, surely that couldn’t be his reflection, because it was a good three inches taller and moving in the opposite direction.  He stared at it for half a minute or so, trying to make sense of this strange course of events.

Major Major’s reflection, not nearly so curious about the phenomenon, walked clean out of the shop and started off down the street.  And that didn’t make any sense at all, until Major Major thought for another moment, blinked twice, and started after it.

It took Major Major five minutes, two city blocks, and a conveniently placed traffic jam to catch up.

“Hey!” he shouted, panting.

The reflection turned around slowly, as though not immediately sure it was being addressed.

Major Major bent over and put his hands on his knees, stood up to point accusingly, then went back down again.  “I just want you to know,” he gasped, “that I really don’t like looking like you.  A lot of people have said I do, and it’s given me a lot of trouble, and I don’t appreciate it.  I usually don’t confront people, but I’ve wanted to say this to you for a while, and I never did figure out what the best address to send your letters to was, so.”

Henry Fonda stared at the odd man standing before him, considering his face as though considering whether or not to buy a particularly expensive three-piece suit that wasn’t worth his time or money.

“People say you look like me?” he finally asked.  “I don’t really see it.”

And he turned on his heel and continued walking.

* * *

Huple’s cat had lived a pretty good life.

She had been the only cat on the base in Pianosa.  For the first few weeks, she had missed the company of her friends back home, but then she realized that no other cats meant no competition, and settled down to enjoy all the milk she could drink, all the mice she could eat, and all the warm places she could sleep in.  And warm places there were many: sunny windowsills, insides of tents, tree stumps, cafeteria tables, army cots.

The best place by far, though, was on top of one man’s face.  The cat didn’t like the man when he was awake – he was always very rude to her, screaming in her face, pushing her away, and kicking her out of his tent – but when he was asleep, he was wonderful.  Sure, he still screamed, but it wasn’t at _her_ , and his face was the most comfortable bed she had found in all seven of her lives.

She hadn’t meant to suffocate him, really.  She was only trying to show her appreciation for his wonderful face.  Perhaps, in retrospect, she shouldn’t have done it by sitting on him so hard, but how was she to know that it would cut off his air flow?  She was only a cat, after all.

The cat did feel bad about the whole incident afterwards – mostly because she never again found quite so comfortable a sleeping place.

* * *

Yossarian took his sweet time getting to Sweden.

First, he and Luciana had had to get married, which meant finding her parents, getting shouted at by her parents in Italian, listening to Luciana shout back at her parents in Italian, eventually getting kissed by Luciana’s parents, going to a chapel for a very quick ceremony, and finally honeymooning in Luciana’s cousin’s summer home on the beach near Pescara.  Then, Luciana had had to buy winter clothes (because she couldn’t go to Sweden without a proper coat, that would be crazy), which meant finding a store that sold coats, trying on about a million of them, realizing he couldn’t afford any, stealing one, and then running from the police.  After that, he and Luciana had had to get on a train headed for Sweden, which meant forging papers, losing the papers, forging more papers, running out of money for a ticket, and stowing away in a storage car.

By the time they actually reached Sweden about a month later, they were cold, tired, _married,_ and completely out of cash.  Luciana was seriously questioning her life choices and Yossarian was contemplating slapping her across the face to see if that would stop her complaining.

But there, on the platform waiting for them, was Orr – crab apples in his cheeks and all.

“Orr!” Yossarian shouted, jumping out of the train car and running toward him as fast as he could.

Orr grinned and giggled his odd, manic giggle.  (Yossarian was surprised at how much he’d missed it.)  “Hi, Yossarian,” he said.  “What’re you doing here?”

“I deserted!” Yossarian shouted.  He was standing one foot in front of Orr, so there was really no need to shout, but he shouted all the same.  “I refused to fly any more missions, and then they offered me this odious deal, and I almost took it, but then I didn’t, and I got stabbed and ran away and married Luciana and now I’m here.”

“My way was easier,” Orr replied.

“Oh, yeah.  For sure, buddy.  For sure.”  Yossarian took another step forward and squeezed Orr in an embrace of quite some magnitude.  “I’m so sorry I didn’t listen to you, you tiny mechanics-loving apple-eating idiotic absolutely crazy genius,” he said into Orr’s shoulder.

Orr didn’t say anything – just grinned and squeezed back.

(A few seconds later, they realized that the train had left the station with Luciana and the mechanical parts Orr had been there to pick up in the first place still on it, and had to hijack a nearby car and drive at breakneck speed to the next station.  But it was okay.  They were free, and everything was okay.)

* * *

Chaplain A. T. Tappman became very good at standing up to people.

It was easy, really, once he got the knack of it.  All he had to do was stand very straight, stare very hard into his opponent’s eyes, and sing psalms very loudly in his head.  He could usually get through two or three by the time whoever it was was done shouting, and then he would simply say, “Okay, but you can’t order me around.  I am a man of God.”  And his opponent would sit down, looking somewhat befuddled, and tell him to leave.

The Chaplain got rid of the C.I.D. men on his trail using this method.  Persuading Colonel Cathcart to let the men with over seventy missions go took longer, but he still managed it.  (He had to sing a couple of psalms aloud, which overexerted his voice so much that he couldn’t speak for a week, but all the men treated him like a hero after that, so it was worth it.)

After the war, he returned home to his wife and three beautiful children.  His wife was very happy to see that he had come home safely, and he was very happy to see that she had not choked, been run over, or electrocuted in his absence.  He found a position at a small Anabaptist church and gave extremely moving sermons on the power of faith and hope.  His congregation, none of whom had ever fought in a war, adored him.

And then, one day, the Chaplain received a postcard from Sweden.  Upon reading it, he laughed uproariously for the better part of an hour.  His wife was concerned for his mental well-being (especially after she read it herself) but he seemed so happy that she was loath to say anything to him.

The postcard had a picture of a beautiful snow-covered mountain and no return address.  It read:

> _Dear Chaplain –_
> 
> _I yearn for you tragically._
> 
> _Washington Irving_


End file.
